- "Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and healthy ecosystems."
Ecosystem services are the benefits that humans derive from the natural world, including clean water, clean air, and pollination. Biodiversity conservation is important for maintaining ecosystem services.
Biodiversity: The variety of life on Earth, including diversity within and between species, ecosystems, and landscapes.
Ecosystem function: The processes that take place in ecosystems, such as nutrient cycling, water filtration, pollination, and pest control.
Ecosystem services: The benefits that humans derive from ecosystems, including provisioning services (such as food and water), regulating services (such as climate regulation and water purification), supporting services (such as soil formation and nutrient cycling), and cultural services (such as recreation and spiritual values).
Valuation of ecosystem services: The process of determining the economic, social, and environmental values of ecosystem services, which can inform policy and management decisions.
Drivers of change: The factors that can affect ecosystem services, including land use change, climate change, pollution, and invasive species.
Conservation and restoration: Strategies for protecting and restoring ecosystems and the services they provide, including protected area management, ecological restoration, and sustainable land use practices.
Human well-being: The interconnectedness of ecosystems and human societies, including the role of ecosystem services in supporting human health, livelihoods, and cultural traditions.
International agreements and policies: The global frameworks that aim to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Citizen science and participatory approaches: The involvement of communities and stakeholders in monitoring and managing ecosystems and their services, including through citizen science, traditional knowledge, and collaborative decision-making processes.
Research and innovation: The advances in science and technology that are driving our understanding of ecosystems and the services they provide, including remote sensing, modeling, and the application of new tools and techniques.
Provisioning services: These refer to the goods that are extracted from ecosystems such as food, fiber, fuel, and medicinal plants.
Regulating services: These are services that allow ecosystems to function properly and maintain a healthy balance. Examples include water filtration, climate regulation, pest control, and pollination.
Supporting services: These services provide the basis for other ecosystem services to exist. Examples include soil formation, nutrient cycling, and habitat creation.
Cultural services: These are services provided by ecosystems that are not directly related to material benefits. Examples include spiritual and recreational activities, cultural heritage, and aesthetic appreciation.
Climate regulation services: These services help regulate the Earth’s climate by storing and sequestering carbon, mitigating the effects of climate change, and helping to maintain environmental stability.
Disease regulation services: The role of ecosystems in limiting the spread of diseases and parasites through their populations.
Habitat services: The provision of natural habitats for species which require them to survive.
Water regulation services: The ecological processes that regulate freshwater flow and quality, including water filtration, flood control, and erosion control.
- "Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystems, grassland ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems."
- "Natural pollination of crops, clean air, extreme weather mitigation, and human mental and physical well-being."
- "Collectively, these benefits are becoming known as ecosystem services."
- "The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) in the early 2000s popularized this concept."
- "Ecosystem services are grouped into four broad categories: provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural."
- "Provisioning services include the production of food and water."
- "Regulating services include the control of climate and disease."
- "Supporting services include nutrient cycles and oxygen production."
- "Cultural services include spiritual and recreational benefits."
- "Estuarine and coastal ecosystems are both marine ecosystems."
- "Regulating services, provisioning services, cultural services, and supporting services."
- "Regulating services include climate regulation, waste treatment, disease regulation, and buffer zones."
- "Provisioning services include forest products such as timbers, marine products, fresh water, raw materials, and biochemical and genetic resources."
- "Cultural services include inspirational aspects, recreation and tourism, science and education."
- "Supporting services include nutrient cycling, biologically mediated habitats, and primary production."
- "While scientists and environmentalists have discussed ecosystem services implicitly for decades..."
- "To help inform decision-makers, many ecosystem services are being evaluated to draw equivalent comparisons to human-engineered infrastructure and services."
- "Natural pollination of crops, clean air, extreme weather mitigation, and human mental and physical well-being."
- "...and are often integral to the provision of food, the provisioning of clean drinking water, the decomposition of wastes, and the resilience and productivity of food ecosystems."